The Story: Counter Strike Global Offensieve

One of the most sought after game, Counter strike commonly known as CS was created in the year 1999 by Minh "Gooseman" Le and Jess Cliffe developed under Valve corporation as Half-life: counter strike. It was the first-person shooter game. It tasted huge success in 2000. It revolutionized gaming. There was no looking back.

The successor of Half-Life was counter strike: condition zero instituted under Turtle Rock Studios conquered the market in the year 2004. That year also saw Counter strike: source by Valve which set the benchmark as it was run on Valve's source engine. Then came counter strike: neo, Japanese version of Half-Life.

The year 2008 saw Counter strike Online which mainly aimed Asian markets. It was developed by Nexon which introduced micropayment.

Valve again slayed gaming market with counter strike: global offensive in 2012. It is renowned as CS:GO. It took the level of counter strike to a whole new heights. It has classic content, revised maps, characters, gaming modes.

Professional Counter-Strike competition

The 2013 DreamHack SteelSeries Counter Strike

Global Offensive Championship or simply DreamHack Winter 2013 was the first Counter-Strike: Global Offensive Major to be sponsored by Valve. The competition was held during the DreamHack Winter 2013 digital festival at the Elmia Exhibition and Convention Centre in Jönköping, Sweden. 16 invitees joined ten qualifiers to form the sixteen team event. Community funding helped to build the US$250,000 prizepool. The tournament had a peak 145,000 concurrent viewers on twitch.tv and the in-game viewing client.

Final positions

Champions

Fnatic

1st Runner-up

Ninjas in Pyjamas

2nd Runner-up

compLexity Gaming

2014 EMS One Katowice

TElectronic Sports League Major Series One Katowice 2014, known as EMS One Katowice 2014 for short, was the second Counter-Strike: Global Offensive major that was held from March 13–16, 2014 at the Spodek Arena in Katowice, Silesian Voivodeship, Poland. It was organized by Electronic Sports League and sponsored by the game's developers Valve Corporation. The tournament had a total prize pool of US$250,000. Virtus.pro was the winner of the event after beating Ninjas in Pyjamas in the finals.EMS One Katowice was livestreamed on twitch.tv had a peak of over 250,000 concurrent viewers.

Final positions

Champions

Virtus.pro

1st Runner-up

Ninjas in Pyjamas

2nd Runner-up

Team Dignitas

2017 Recent Major Events

PGL 2017 Krakow Major Championship, also known as PGL Major 2017, will be the eleventh Counter-Strike: Global Offensive Major tournament. It will be organized by PGL and held in Kraków, Poland from July 16 to 23, 2017. It will feature 16 professional teams from around the world. Eight teams directly qualify based on their top eight placement in the last major, ELEAGUE Major 2017, while another eight teams qualified through the Offline Major Qualifier. The PGL Major will be fourth consecutive major with a prize pool of $1,000,000.

Final positions

Champions

Astralis

1st Runner-up

Virtus.pro

2nd Runner-up

SK Gaming

2017 ELEAGUE Major

PGL 2017 Krakow Major Championship, also known as PGL Major 2017, will be the eleventh Counter-Strike: Global Offensive Major tournament. It will be organized by PGL and held in Kraków, Poland from July 16 to 23, 2017. It will feature 16 professional teams from around the world. Eight teams directly qualify based on their top eight placement in the last major, ELEAGUE Major 2017, while another eight teams qualified through the Offline Major Qualifier. The PGL Major will be fourth consecutive major with a prize pool of $1,000,000.

Event Trivia

The Train map was removed for the tournament, while Cache and Overpass, as well as the Cbble remix Cobblestone were added. Overpass was released by Valve only a month before the tournament, and the decision to add a new map with such short notice and at Major event caused some controversy.

Ninjas in Pyjamas was the winner of the event after beating Fnatic 2-1 in the finals. The tournament was livestreamed on the official ESL twitch.tv channel. 409,368 concurrent viewers watched the grand finals, while 2,950,600 total unique viewers watched the event across four days.

dAT Team player Egor “Flamie” Vasilyev was alleged to have cheated in a qualifier by using an account that may not have his due it having an unusually low number of playing hours.Ultimately he was allowed to compete.